OAKLAND -- As savvy as rookie forward Draymond Green is, surely he's aware which Warrior regular is shooting the best postseason 3-point field goal percentage so far. And it isn't one of coach Mark Jackson's prolific backcourt marksmen.

That's right, the numbers don't lie. Stephen Curry is shooting .474. Klay Thompson, .429. And Green -- who should probably now be Drain-mond -- is firing from downtown at a cool .500 clip.

So, the body of work (4 for 8) might be thin. But it's noteworthy for a guy who shot just 20.9 percent from 3-point range in the regular season and elicited cringes whenever he decided to fire from anywhere outside of a few feet.

And the Warriors would sure like to see it continue Tuesday night in a potential closeout Game 5 in Denver.

Golden State Warriors' Draymond Green (23) celebrates against the Denver Nuggets in the fourth quarter of Game 4 of their first-round NBA basketball playoff series on Sunday, April 28, 2013, in Oakland, Calif. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)

After shooting just 32.9 percent in the regular season, Green has bumped it up to 64.3 in the playoffs. Green's two 3-pointers during Golden State's critical 115-101 Game 4 win Sunday marked his first-ever multiple-3 game.

"I work on it a ton, whether it's before practice, during practice or shooting after, coming here at night," Green said Monday. "It's a huge difference shooting that college three as opposed to the NBA three, and we all know it showed in my percentage all year. But I'm just trying to keep confident at it, and one thing coach always tells me, 'You're in here working on it every day. Why not shoot it in the game?' "

Advertisement

Green entered Michigan State as an abysmal shooter but improved rapidly. He said his rookie NBA season was not an accurate representation of how hard he works at his perimeter game -- partly because of a knee injury that limited his training camp involvement.

"I was trying to get my legs under me during the season, but the knee started bothering me again," he said. "It's really been hampering me all year. But I think I feel the best I've felt in a long time the last week or so. It's showing in my game. I'm looking a little more spry out there, being all over the floor, and the jump shot is looking a lot better because I can actually get some rhythm going into it."

Jackson played Green 25 minutes in Game 4, almost all of those in the decisive second half. It wasn't for his shooting. It was for the kind of intuitive, aggressive all-around skills that he exhibited in arguably his best game in a Golden State uniform. The numbers: a career-high 13 points, six rebounds, four steals, two assists and one block.

In short, he performed like a player who's been in the playoffs for a decade.

"You have to really pay attention and know the game to appreciate what he does on the floor," said Jackson. "It was funny to me that people would ask why he was in the game in Game 1. The guy is a winner, he's a competitor, he cares, he works his tail off, and he's going to be a coach in this league or somewhere. The guy was a coach when we drafted him. He could do that today if he wanted to. That's how good he is and how smart he is."

Here's some proof of that. Green remarked both after the game and Monday how much more he enjoys playoff basketball than regular-season play because NBA officials let the players be more aggressive defensively. They don't call as many ticky-tack fouls, something that plagued the rookie on occasion during the regular year.

"I definitely think you can be a lot looser and a lot more physical," he said. "But I didn't just notice that. I've noticed it all my life watching playoff basketball. Especially when you're a guy trying to make it to that level, you just store that in your memory bank."